Welcome to the fourth episode of a series of whiteboard sessions where I’ll discuss ways of doing Multi-Site k8s! When architecting such an environment there are many pitfalls and complexities to solve; things that appear so simple can prove to be so complex and the other way around.

Episode 4: Stretching a K8s cluster

In this episode I will focus on how to build a multi-site k8s setup using a single (“stretched”) k8s cluster. One k8s cluster, three sites where two of those have their own storage array platform in a metro (or “active/active”) configuration. We’ll add two tools to make this work: a pair of CSI drivers (one in each DC), and the Dell Container Storage Module (CSM) called “Replication” to make k8s multi-site aware and understand the architecture we’re building out.

As you may know, k8s itself has no way of understanding storage replication. Luckily Dell’s CSM modules continue where k8s stops! In this case we’ll be using the replication module so that we can make k8s just a little smarter and understand the idea of mirrored metro storage between two locations.

Watch the whiteboard video here: